Take a Sad Song and Make it Better
by Mischief
Summary: Lucy Carlyle and John Carlson have been best friends until they graduated and went their separate ways. Now reunited, Lucy and Carlson realize that they both have changed, some for better and some for worse.
1. From West to East

All she wanted to do was block out the scream of the four year old behind her while trying to hone in on her nonexistent telepathy skills to tell him to stop kicking her seat. She didn't pay for her seat to be a rejected massage chair.

She turned to glare at the small child but was greeted by the mother's scornful looks.

"Excuse me, but could you tell your son to please stop kicking my chair? I'm trying to get some sleep." There. She was polite enough. She didn't express her yearning to open the emergency exit door and promptly drop kick him out into the cold.

"Sleep? It's 11:30 in the morning..." The woman gritted her teeth as her eyes threw daggers in the girl's direction. She promptly returned the daggers and gave her kid one last look before turning around in her seat. She only had an hour and half before she reached the airport, yet that hour and a half would seem like an eternity. The idea of sitting in her best friend's car and heading off to his apartment was merely a dream because of the nightmare behind her.

She put her headphones back in and turned up Gogol Bordello. So what if her eardrums would be covered in scar tissue when she's older, at least the silence would give her some peace. Her forehead pressed to the cold window as she gazed at her reflection. She looked pale. Perhaps that was the trick of the light. Her blue eyes looked exhausted and had dark circles under them. Her brown hair was in a messy braid with wisps around her face. She looked tired.

She was tired.

That was the reason why she was going to Virginia. Well, one of the reasons. She graduated from college with a total of fifteen breakdowns in the last semester, one nearly landing her in the psyche ward. It was all overwhelming and stressful. Not only that, but her friends decided she wasn't "cool" enough. She would rather stay at home and watch a film to relax rather than go to the local club and get wasted. She was too exhausted for that, and chances are she had to study.

Naturally, after suffering from an overload of emotional breakdowns and finally graduating, she decided that it would be in her best interest if she went away from the west coast...far away. The only place she could think of was Virginia. She knew one person there. Her best friend since middle school and now a professional hockey player.

How could a girl who was so awkward in her own skin growing up, glasses too big for her face, acne covered cheeks, flat chested and quiet, ever be best friends with the popular hockey player who was charming, flirtatious and mischievous all at the same time?

Parents. That and no matter how tough and cool he seemed, John Carlson had a big heart. She could still remember the time when she was getting teased and John stood up for her, even though the culprit of the teasing was someone he was interested in. However, he learned the hard way that calling a girl a "mutant" was a one way ticket to rejection.

"Don't worry about it, Jude" He smirked slowly. "Don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better."

Whenever she was down, he would always sing that to her. This was because her parents had an enthusiastic obsession with The Beatles. They named her Lucille but most of the time they called her by her middle name, Jude (short for Judith).

At their funeral, they played Let It Be and Imagine. They were both cremated. John and Lucy went to New York to Strawberry Fields and spread their ashes there in the rumored style of John Lennon. They didn't need to say anything while we were there. It was comfortable silence. Comfortable depressing silence. The final goodbye.

The plane finally landed on the tarmac and the nerves set it. "Welcome to Reagan National Airport! It is a cool 89 degrees outside..." The rest of the welcome was blocked out by her own thoughts.

It had been a long time since she's seen John. Four years to be exact. They had kept touch with email and random telephone calls. Lucy would occasionally watch a hockey game if she could find it on the television. Unfortunately she never understood hockey. She went to a ton of John's games when they were younger, but she never learned what was going on. All she knew was that John was a defensemen and that he was good.

"Did you see my goal at the Junior Championships?" He asked on the phone. It was loud and Lucy could barely hear him through the cheers.

"What? John? I can't hear you! But I saw the goal! It was-" Her praises were interrupted by a loud John Carlson cheer and a click.

Lucy waited patiently until everyone was off the plane. She then grabbed her things from the overhead compartment and slung it over her shoulder. It was now or never.


	2. Reunited

John Carlson paced nervously in front of the terminal. He put his hands in his pockets, removed them, chewed on his thumbnail, put his hands back in his pockets and then audibly sighed. He shouldn't have been so nervous, but he was. This girl was his best friend and he promised that no matter what happened, they would be there for each other, and she needed him more than ever.

She didn't call much, but when she did, it was usually to compliment him on a goal or on a good game. It was never a long conversation, but a quick summary of their day, week, month, however the length between conversations. However, this call scared him.

"John?" Lucy whimpered. Her voice was weak and full of panic.

"Lucy, are you okay?" He didn't wait long for her answer. She started sobbing on the phone, explaining to him everything that has gone wrong and how she couldn't take it much longer. They talked for hours, John trying his best to calm her down.

"I just," Lucy whispered, her voice hoarse from crying, "I just don't see the point anymore."

"The point in what?" John closed his eyes. He was emotionally drained and exhausted.

"Everything. I can't handle life anymore, John. No matter what I do, it goes...it goes wrong. I'm tired."

Those very words scared him. "You don't want to do that, Lucy. Just, get through this semester. You're almost done. Then just come to Virginia for a little while. You can stay with me and stuff. I got an extra room." He didn't think twice about inviting her, so long as she didn't mooch off of him, but that was terribly unlikely. Things would just be like they were before.

"You don't mind?" She said with a yawn.

"Not at all. Come on, Jude." He smiled sleepily while resting his phone between his ear and his shoulder. "Don't make it bad, take a sad song and make it better..."

A stream of people headed towards the baggage claim. He always wondered why people made a beeline to the baggage claim when it should take another 15 minutes for them to even start the belt. The crow went past him, some of them stopped to look up at the hockey player, some even pointing and whispering. He was used to it. He kept a pen in his pocket in case someone wanted something signed. He wasn't cocky, just prepared.

"John?"

John stared at the girl who stood by herself. She had a pillbox hat box in one hand and a backpack on her back. Her hair was in a messy braid, her blue eyes stared excitedly at him. When she smiled, a dimple appeared in her right cheek. She was shorter than him by almost a foot. She was tan from the California sun. He figured that she studied a lot outside. She enjoyed the outdoors after all. She had ditched the baggy clothing that she wore in high school for a pair of shorts which cuffed above the knee and her light weight Washington Capitals jacket that he sent her for Christmas.

"Lucy?" He smiled wide and started walking towards her. She had changed. Of course, she looked absolutely exhausted, but there was a new light about her. She hate California, that was obvious, but maybe it changed her positively. He couldn't put a finger on it, but she seemed less awkward.

"JOHN!" She exclaimed dropping her backpack, her hat box and running to him. She flung her arms around him in a giant hug. Lucy buried her head in his neck, almost crying out of happiness.

John wrapped his arms around her waist and lifted her up and spun her around. "Lucy! You look like shit!" He put her down gently. Lucy frowned and wrinkled her freckle speckled nose.

"You try flying across country, two layovers, and a small child kicking your seat for the last decade and see how you look after." She turned around to pick up her belongings and then looked over her shoulder grinning. "It's good to see you, John."

"Good to see you too." He took her things and walked with her to the baggage claim. "So, you had a bad flight?"

"The worst." She cracked her knuckles and watched the belt go around for her luggage. "I had a kid kick my chair, a woman who had bad body odor and who snored sit next to me, and a very irritated flight attendant. Oh, and the man in front of me was certain that I was the reincarnate of Audrey Hepburn. He said it was because I look a lot like her, but with blue eyes." She grabbed her bag and hauled it off the belt.

John frowned and opened his mouth to reply but was cut off by a kid holding a jersey. "Can you...can you sign this for me please?" John took the jersey and scribbled his signature on the back before handing it back to him. "Thanks!" He ran off, yelling to his dad that he got Carlson's autograph.

He was used to it. People seem to find him at strange times and wanting an autograph. As long as they didn't stay to chat too long, it was fine. Lately, when someone would ask him to sign something, they would ask him how his off-season was going. To be honest, until now it wasn't interesting. He just replied with the same thing. "Oh, just conditioning." He didn't mention visiting home, playing video games, and the girls. It was really the same thing that he did during hockey season.

"Famous much?" Lucy asked while removing her smaller second piece of luggage. She wrinkled her nose and took the backpack from his hands and put it back on her back. John chuckled and handed her her hat box and took the biggest suitcase.

"This is all you brought?"

"I sold everything else so I could have a bit of money in case I have issues getting a job. Better safe than sorry." She shrugged her shoulders. It wasn't hard to part with a majority of her belongings. She kept the clothes, the books and reminders of her parents. Everything else was sold.


End file.
